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Published: January 15th 2005
Right, so i left UB with lots of mongolian and chinese currency to avoid cash-flow disaster similar to the russian border fiasco, hopped on a train bound for Zamin-Ude which is the mongolian/chinese border town after an uneventful journey i leapt off the train excited about being interrogated by angry chinese, i got to the border crossing it was dull- got into an enormous room FULL of mongolians crossing into china. A border guard came upto me and asked if i was german. I disguised my abhorrence and showed him my passport, he escorted me past the crowd and i just walked through, felt kinda bad cutting in infront of the masses but i wasnt going argue with the red guard.
Im in Erlin wondering around, looking for an ATM as the ticket to Beijing is 150 RMB and i had about 146 RMB which was annoying, so after i looked around for an ATM for a while i was approached by this chinese lady who started talking to me in English, she hlped me find the bank and helped gave me a lift to it, asked if i would like to hang around and visit her students to helpthem
with their english. I said yeah sure so after i was fed by her grandparents i was taken to the classroom where 30 8-10 year olds were waiting with baited breath for me to arrive, these kids had never seen a forigner before. I had great fun writing on the board and playing teacher, at about 5 when the school finished (it was just holiday classes) we went to her parents, met her husband and ate and drank alot. it wasnt chinese food as you may imagine it as we were right up north it was inner mongolian food; so there was no rice, lots of heavy vegatables and potatoes and stuffmade with flour. it was good! In the evening they took me out to a club and refused to let me pay for anything i slept in their house which was really fancy by chinese standards as they lived in a government community- the big government building has a housing complex next to it and an enormous chinese flag. all a little communist but i wasnt about to complain. next day i did some more teaching and was all ready to head to beijing when the husband gave me
a ticket all paid for all the way to beijing and drove me to the station. i was quite surprised by how generous they were, i think, depressingly enough that a chinese person with no english wouldnt see such kindness from the english.
Beijing is very big and very busy- bright lights big city etc, the forbidden city is damn impressive and the backstreets are exactly what one expects of beijing! I must dash so i shall upload more photos later- i took 120 in the forbidden city!
Cheerio
P.S: I have since eaten the scorpion. was kinda like a pork scratching!
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